Chapter 7 #2
“Hey,” he replies, his voice gruff.
I slip into the warm vehicle and smile over at him. “Thank you for doing this. You have no idea how grateful I am.”
“Not a problem.” I catch his Adam’s apple bob as he turns away from me.
“Is, uh . . . is everything okay?”
“Yeah,” he says, pulling on the back of his neck before he glances at me again. “That’s a really nice dress, Ollie.”
I glance down at it as if I haven’t been staring at myself in the damn thing for the past half hour. “Thank you. Ross helped me find it. I didn’t have anything that was black tie appropriate.”
“You should have told me. I could have helped.”
“Why would you help? I’m the one who asked you for a favor.”
“I still could have helped.”
“Well, it’s fine. Everything worked out.”
He nods and grips the steering wheel a touch tighter. Confused about his stiff attitude, I ask, “Are you sure everything’s okay? If you don’t want to do this, I totally get it. I just—”
“No, I don’t mind,” he says and then sighs. “Christ, I just wasn’t expecting you to look so hot. That’s all.”
“Oh.” My cheeks blush. “Well . . . I guess I’ll take that as a compliment.”
“Sorry, that was a shit way to say it.” He turns toward me, and with a genuine look in his eyes, he says, “Ollie, you look beautiful.”
“Thank you,” I reply, feeling shy and awkward and good God, why is this so hard? “You look very nice yourself, so if we can move on from this because I feel really weird, that would be great.”
“Sorry.” He chuckles. “Still trying to figure all of this out. How to approach things. I feel like you should know you look good, but that’s also something a real boyfriend would say, so . . . fuck . . . I don’t know how to handle this.”
“Ah, yes, I get it,” I say. “How about we just treat this like a business transaction? Like would you tell your colleague that he looked good in a suit?”
“Hornsby demands I pay attention to his outfits . . . but I get what you’re trying to say.”
“I wish I knew which one of your teammates you were talking about. I know I met them, but it was brief. I retained nothing.”
Silas pulls away from the curb and says, “Eli Hornsby. Look up a picture of him on your phone. He’s the pretty boy of the group.
Somehow, in all the years he’s played hockey, he’s never managed to get his face bashed in, giving him that perfect movie star look.
Earlier this year, he got Pacey’s sister pregnant. ”
“Really?” I ask. “Who’s Pacey again?”
“Our goalie.”
I type away on my phone to pull up a picture of him. “How did he handle the news?”
“Not well. Things were rocky within the group for a bit, but luckily, we helped them work it out.”
“Does Pacey have a girlfriend? He’s pretty cute.”
Silas side-eyes me. “He’s just as old as I am, so stop knocking on the doors of grandads.
” I laugh out loud. “And he’s attached. He and Winnie are engaged.
She actually got lost in the woods right outside of my house in Banff and wound up needing help in the middle of the rainstorm.
We thought she was a murderer, and she accused us of being murderers.
But in the end, Hornsby was the one who suggested she was good, and Pacey just so happened to hit it off with her.
And smitten . . . the boy was all over her on day one. ”
“Really?” I ask. “Has he ever had that reaction to a girl before?”
Silas shakes his head. “No. It was an interesting thing to experience. He was never the doting boyfriend, but Winnie came along, and he was like a goddamn grizzly bear. He didn’t want anyone going near her.”
“That’s hot,” I say. “Too bad he’s taken.”
Silas shakes his head. “And then there’s Levi Posey. He will eat anything you put in front of him, truly loves food, but not refined food. He likes things like bologna and Swedish Fish.”
“There is nothing wrong with Swedish Fish.”
“He eats the Swedish Fish on his bologna sandwich.”
“Oh.” I wince. “Ew, that’s gross.”
“Exactly. And he seems like this loveable guy who is nice to everyone, which is true, but the boy gets around.”
“Like sleeps with a lot of women?”
“Yes, but he’s never mean about it. He never hurts women’s feelings. They know what they’re getting into. And people always assume it’s Hornsby who is the biggest player, but really . . . it’s Posey.”
“Where do you fall in line on that scale?” I ask as he makes a right.
“I met Sarah back in high school. I was never with anyone else. It was me and her up until we broke up. I’ve fucked around a bit since, but nothing like Posey or Hornsby before he met Penny.”
“Interesting. So you’ve had sex with other women besides Sarah?”
“Yes.”
“Who was the lucky girl after your breakup? And how did it feel?”
“Some girl I picked up at a hotel bar. It was really fucking weird at first. I was drunk. She was drunk. I fumbled a lot, so it probably wasn’t her best experience.”
“Aw, poor Silas. Did you find your stride after that?”
“Yeah.” His hand falls to his thigh. “Sex for me is way different now. I don’t feel like I have to stay in a box.
If I want to talk dirty, I won’t get chastised for it.
If I want to spank a woman’s ass, I don’t feel bad about it.
If I want my cock sucked, I’m going to ask and won’t have any regrets. ”
I fan myself. “Ooo, tell me more.”
He chuckles. “When you’re with someone for so long, you get in a groove and forget that you can explore other options. I’ve explored. I know what I want now.”
“I know what I want, just haven’t had the chance to ask for it,” I say.
“Why not?”
“Haven’t found a guy worthy of my time,” I answer.
“At least you have standards.”
“I do.” I clear my throat. “So there is one more guy in your group. What was his name again? Uh, it began with an H.”
“Halsey Holmes,” Silas says. “He’s a tough one.
He lost his twin brother a few years back.
Holden. We were all devastated, but Halsey really didn’t handle it well for obvious reasons.
He’s never been the same. He’s focused on hockey and hockey alone.
Some of the championships we have are because of him.
When he comes up to the cabin during the off-season, he keeps to himself a lot of the time, always reading, and we just let him because we know if he needs something, he will come to us.
Surprisingly, out of the guys in our group, he’s the most levelheaded.
Well, he and Pacey. If you need advice, they’re the ones to go to. ”
“Huh,” I say as I stare down at a picture of Halsey. “He’s also really handsome. Is he dating anyone?”
“No, but he has a huge crush on a girl who is actually dating someone else.”
“Aw, that makes me sad for him. Does she know?”
“Probably not. We barely know about it. It slipped out of him earlier this year, and it’s something none of us have been able to let go because we’re pretty sure he hasn’t had sex since his brother died.”
“Interesting,” I say. “I mean, that’s not the end of the world. I’ve barely had sex.”
He stops at a red light and looks over at me. “What do you mean you’ve barely had sex?”
I shrug. “Yonny wasn’t that into it. I love the act of sex and living through a heart-beating orgasm. It’s the best feeling ever, so I never understood him. It really irritated me that he didn’t want to have sex that much. I started to think I was repulsive or something.”
“Not the case,” Silas says as we start moving again. “The dude probably had some sort of complex.”
“Maybe. Hard not to blame yourself, though, you know?”
“Don’t,” he says. “That’s all on him, trust me.”
“Thanks,” I say quietly, then stare out the window.
I appreciate his reassurance, but I still can’t help to think it had something to do with me.
Maybe my expectations were too high? “Do you remember the first time you looked at porn?” He coughs and pats his chest, causing me to laugh.
“Sorry, that was kind of out of the blue. It was a bit of a rabbit trail in my head.”
“You think?”
“I was just thinking that maybe my expectations were too high with Yonny because of porn,” I say.
“My friend showed me my first video our freshman year in high school. Her older brother had it all over his computer. I was fascinated. I remember going home and looking at it myself. I thought it was so hot. These people just getting off with each other. But when it came to the actual act of sex, I always felt intimidated. It took me a second to lose my virginity, and when I did, it was not the kind of experience I wanted to give myself.”
“No guy is good at sex when they’re younger. None.”
“I guess so. And with Yonny, he was . . . well, less than interested to say the least. I love playing with my nipples so much, and he never paid them any attention. He was in and out. Honestly, the only orgasms I’ve ever felt have been hand-delivered by me.”
From the corner of my eye, I catch his grip on the steering wheel tighten even further.
“Am I making you mad?” I ask, sensing the tension in his shoulders as well.
“Yeah, only because I can’t stand guys who don’t put in the effort.”
“Are you saying you put in the effort, Silas?” I ask teasingly.
He makes another right, then slowly pulls in front of a lavish hotel. When he puts the car in park, he turns toward me and says, “I don’t come until she comes.” And with that, he’s out of the car and moving around the front to open my door.
* * *
“Are you sure this is okay?” I ask, my palm feeling sweaty as I hold Silas’s hand.
“Can you stop asking?” he says. “Couples hold hands.”
“I know, I know, but this was supposed to be your ruse, not mine. I feel like I’m abusing the situation now. I owe you something, like . . . a new pair of skates.”
“For the love of God, don’t purchase me new skates. And you owe me nothing. This is the deal we made.”
“I know,” I whisper. “I just feel like we need to make more of a deal.” I spot an empty high-top table and tug on his hand. “Over here.”